On Dunghutti Country in South West Rocks, NSW, Greybox by Welsh + Major challenges conventional holiday home design with a playful but thoughtful approach to coastal architecture. This experimental residence of partners in work and life, Chris Major and David Welsh, turns the traditional verandah homestead inside out, creating a hybrid that draws inspiration from beachside motels, tractor sheds, and cloistered abbeys.

The design centres on outdoor living, with separate rooms arranged around a three-sided verandah that wraps a central courtyard. This configuration maximises the connection to landscape and climate while addressing the practicalities of a suburban coastal site. It’s a courtyard house that prioritises environment over enclosure.

Major and Welsh, together with project team members Danielle Severino and Matt Walker, have created a composition that feels both utilitarian and refined. The corrugated metal cladding nods to agricultural vernacular, while considered material choices and spatial planning reveal a more sophisticated sensibility.

The courtyard becomes the heart of the home, offering protected outdoor space that connects all rooms while framing views of the surrounding bushland. Emily Simpson Landscape Architecture‘s design reinforces this connection to country, with native plantings that blur the boundaries between built form and natural setting.

Built by Ryanbuilt with structural engineering by SDA Structures, Greybox offers an example of how coastal residential architecture can move beyond tired tropes. Rather than turning inward for privacy or outward for views, this house does both, creating multiple relationships with its site through a deceptively simple plan.

[Images courtesy of Welsh + Major. Photography by Katherine Lu.]